A Dying Art
‘Build a sculpture of what you love'
read the Helvetica font on the frontside
of the rubric.
Silly school project I mused,
but hastily I pulled and grasped at
a pile of newspapers
hidden in the shadows of a closet
like an unwanted, obsolete artifact.
Strip by strip I yanked and pulled
without mercy.
Clawing at the edges,
globs of wet glue blurring the words.
My greedy limbs grew feverish
slapping the long-forgotten pieces
together.
The ink dyed my fingers as I
silenced the voices.
I hung over the mess,
steeped in glue and the blood
of the printed.
I wonder now in what world
I have made into my home
where journalism
is better cast off into the corners
of some closet,
more suited as an art project,
than in the mouths of learners.
For I was playing God,
creating martyrs in the wake
of my stomping feet.
Instead of ripping words by their roots
shoving them into the bottom
of a withered wicker-basket,
I choose to plant them,
to nurture the letters
to surplus once again.
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